Gifts Received

Peter Martin Page's Page

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"Laura I have sensed a great deal of hostility in your responses. Let's try to show each other mutual respect by attacking the content of the arguments and not the character of those forwarding the arguments. "

"Richard, we seem to agree on most issues with one major exception. You believe mj reconnects us to a more primitive state, more human and compassionate. I don't believe our more primitive state is humane or compassionate. I believe the…"

"Laura, you need to consider the context a word is used in to understand what its meaning is. When I am referring to indulgence and speaking of freedom it can take nearly opposite meanings depending on its being combined with conscious intentions. A…"

"Im sorry Richard. I am very skeptical there is anything for me to gain from drug culture or any form of indulgent behaviour. My Atheism is part of my empiricism. I lead my life by making an effort to employ my best empirical faculties when deciding…"

"Hi Richard. Please don't interpret my lack of interest in the legalization of marijuana as apathy. I am against the criminalization of marijuana. I consider it a waste of social resources. There was a lot of peer pressure I experienced, as a…"

"You can look for recurring themes in history, psychology, philosophy etc. to get insight into how these relationships work. I have also found the Millgram experiment "Obedience" and Jane Goodall's observations in the Gombe Stream…"

"I recently came out of the Mountain Equipment Co-op Store in downtown Toronto and two idealistic university students approached me and asked me to sign a petition. I am not particularly wealthy but still enjoy clean water, sufficient food,…"

"Laura you haven't mentioned anything I haven't heard before, and what may surprise you, I used to believe. What I can no longer deny is the damage I have witnessed by politically correct ideals.
I worked at the Toronto District School…"

"Hi Dog. The politically correct are the racists. Race matters most to racists. To a true non-racist, race would be irrelevant. Anyone who identifies with their race would be someone who must think being born of a certain race was some kind of…"

"I would never propose legislating against thought. I do feel there is a place to publicly discuss the idea of responsible thought. As individuals, and as a society, we should discuss what constitutes responsible action, speech and thought.…"

"No you shouldn't have the right to believe anything you want. Every freedom has a corresponding responsibility. The level of abstraction of that freedom has nothing to do with this relationship. As we progress through increasing abstraction by…"

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By the time I was thirty I had gone through my De Sade phase of Atheism where I was acting like an injured person lashing out. I had reached a stage where vilifying believers wasn't satisfying. I felt a need to understand why so many people believed in god. To do this I used the faculty I had learned as a philosophy student and motorcycle mechanic, empiricism. As an empiricist I observed god the only place I could find him/her/it, other peoples beliefs. The predominate pattern that emerged…

At the Canadian universities I attended there was a noticeable scarcity of Atheist, Enlightenment writers on reading lists. There were plenty of writers from the romantic conservative reaction, such as Rousseau. After exposure to teachers from France and the United States I was introduced the the writings of French Encyclopedists such as Condorcet and Diderot and their American counterparts Thomas Paine and Jefferson. They still weren't on the reading lists but I had been pointed in the…

Dennis Pennington has commented that many Atheists carry much baggage from religion. I agree. One piece of baggage I am particularly bothered by is Romantic Primitivism. The myth of the Garden of Eden lives on in a wide spread belief life was better when humanity was still in its most primitive stage. We romanticise about what life was like in more primitive society.

These myths gained popularity when Rousseau wrote the Social Contract and the Origins of Inequality as answers to a…

In the movie The Seven Percent Solution, Freud and Holmes use different, but empirical methods to come to the same conclusions. Using empirical reasoning they converge on the same understanding of how a murder took place. In contrast ideologies diverge as people go off on different ideological tangents. Ideologies seem destined to diverge into increasingly fragmented sects.

Are Atheists converging on an increasingly common understanding? As faith based groups splinter into…

You might be interested in the group "Hang With Friends", where people share pretty much whatever's on our minds; perhaps also in some of the discussions in "Atheist Teachers"; and other groups and forums you'll find through the top menu bar.

(And I've found plenty of interesting things through the "Latest Activity" list that hides in the lower right.)